grelmar - 1:29 pm on Jul 5, 2007 (gmt 0)

My guess would be a split development model.

vBulletin would continue to develop and market its BBS software to the public, and use that revenue source as a means of financing development of one, or several, other pieces... namely:

Higher end corporate message boards - this is still a pretty under-served market. Upscale BBSes are rare, and not all that upscale compared to what's available to the average consumer.

Branded, highly customized boards - This would fit well with Internet Brands business model. Having a BBS developper in house able to deploy refined boards tailored to specific sites would be an advantage for the company.

OR... What else? I dunno. The whole BBS software market really needs a shake-up. Nothing super innovative has happened in years. With Jelsoft under a larger coorporate umbrella, it very well might gain the breathing room it needs to experiment a bit.

Also, if I remember right, Jelsoft has some other software under their brand that might prove useful to Internet Brands, especially if they can gain full access to source and be able to customize it and modify it to need.